Executive brief
tcpdump is a widely used tool for monitoring and analyzing network traffic. A vulnerability in its UDP packet processing component could allow an attacker to crash the application or potentially execute unauthorized code by sending specially crafted network traffic. This could lead to a loss of network visibility or a compromise of the system running the tool.
Technical details
A buffer overflow vulnerability exists in the udp_print() function of tcpdump's UDP parser (print-udp.c). The flaw is triggered when the application processes specially crafted UDP packets, either during live capture or when reading a malicious pcap file. Because tcpdump often runs with elevated privileges to capture raw network traffic, an exploit could lead to a denial of service (crash) or remote code execution. The vulnerability is addressed in version 4.9.0. This issue is part of a larger set of protocol-specific parser vulnerabilities fixed in the same release.
Affected products
- tcpdump tcpdump before 4.9.0
Timeline
- 2017-01-26: patched: tcpdump version 4.9.0 released
- 2017-01-27: advisory: NVD publication date